tone-poem

Definitions

from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

n. In music, a term somewhat loosely applied to an instrumental composition in which is expressed such a train of sentiments or images as might be or are contained in a poem. Compare symphonic poem.

Etymologies

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Examples

This tone-poem quality is what makes him, in Auguin's view, a great opera composer -- his ability to translate the decadence of Wilde's language into musical terms, or to set a scene in a few brief moments, as he does at the very beginning of the opera.

The tone-poem parts are pretty wonderful too, thanks to Newton Thomas Sigel's cinematography, which is gorgeous even when the camera is only surveying flat surfaces; to the sound track, which ranges from ecstatic harmonies to overmodulations that sound like a car's harsh exhaust note, and to the director's fondness for enchanted, attenuated encounters, as in the moments, which go from slo-mo to no-mo, when The Driver and Irene first meet.

He does everything from the traditional Balkan and Gypsy music of Luminescent to circus composing to funky tone-poem work on found objects and toy instruments - for which he's written a large part of his oeuvre.

Again, so many quick trailers in a row reaked of desperation from Warner Bros, and it quickly became apparent that the studio was trying to hide what the film really was, a narratively-confused tone-poem that delivered neither high-flying thrills, realistic psychology, or any sense of grand importance to justify its existence.

The shy, Indiana-born Thornhill had been on the swing and dance-band scene since the 1930s: a pianist, arranger and leader whose self-penned theme-song, "Snowfall," was an ethereal tone-poem in which time almost seemed to stop.